Well, that’s definitely one way to look at it.
Not educating women (full stop) and not allowing them to drive is pretty specific to Afghanistan (which technically, if we’re being pedantic weenies, is not part of the traditional Middle East). Saudi Arabia lifted the ban on female driving in 2018, while Afghanistan stopped issuing licenses to women this year. The hijab is legally required of all women in Iran and Afghanistan and Muslim women in Aceh province, Indonesia. I believe everywhere else (including Saudi Arabia, interestingly enough) it is variably a cultural requirement, often an overwhelmingly powerful one, but not a legal one.
Now barriers to female education are real, as are barriers to education period. For example one study claimed in rural Egypt 23% of men, but 45% of women over the age of 6 have never been to school. The pressure to where a hijab in different localities is very real and very strong. There is a metric fuck-ton of misogyny, both institutional and traditional in the MENA. But it is probably better to go with qualified statements over the broad.
My DIL was on a flight where someone had a heart attack. The flight attendant asked if there was a doctor on board. DIL, small and cute, volunteered. The attendant (don’t recall their sex) asked for proof. She couldn’t provide any and they wouldn’t allow her to help. I rather doubt this would have happened to a male physician. They landed the plane at the nearest airport and took the patient off.
Here’s a thumbnail story.
Stupid misogyny? How about the husband stitch?
Referencing #3, I am old enough to remember when commercials came on about seat belts being required. They would feature people responding to the new law. The one I remember with a woman didn’t have her being upset about the lack of comfort, but “they wrinkle my dress!” I don’t have a site for it and it’s probably impossible to find, but I swear that’s how it went.
Back in when I was in the 5th grade my teacher had a large collection of old National Geographic magazines, some of which dated back to the 1950s, which we could read if we finished our work early. Since I was really into cars, I mostly liked to look at the old car ads in them. Even at age 10 or so, the sexism in those old ads was quite jarring to me. There were a lot of ads that said stuff like “You should have two Fords in your driveway: a stylish Thunderbird for the man of the house to impress the guys at the office, and you should buy your wife a station wagon so she can drive the kids around.”
There was an ad for one of the early automatic transmissions that touted “It’s so simple even a woman can drive it.” 
I really did not phrase it correctly. Here is the data behind seat belts and women.
We have to consider whether seat belts effectively keep both men and women safe. The reality is seat-belted females are:
- 17% more likely to die,
- 47% more likely to receive a serious injury and
- 71% more likely to be moderately injured than men when they experienced similar car crashes.
The above is in comparison to men. History of Seat Belts: Effective for Men and Women? -
In the book referenced above, she explains that " …because the design doesn’t take into consideration the fact that women often sit farther forward than men, nor does seat-belt design accommodate women’s statures,"
Car seat belts are designed using 50th percentile MEN as the standard. Women have totally different mass distribution and hence experience different forces during crashes.
“prevalent”? 
In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report compiled with data from 2010-2013. The CDC report estimated 513,000 girls and women in the United States were either victims of FGM or at risk of FGM, with ⅓ under age 18.[19]
(bolding mine)
To put it in perspective, As of 2020, there were 74,592 total women on active duty in the US Army, with 16,987 serving as officers and 57,605 enlisted. Women in the United States Army - Wikipedia
So I think prevalent is a correct description, but YMMV.
I remember that and it wasn’t people ‘responding’ so much as stupid reasons for not wearing a seatbelt. To be fair, I don’t remember the other objections.
To those brushing the Middle East broadly, there’s very little happening with women there that wasn’t happening in the West up into the late 20th century. Some of the things women born in the 1940s and before have told me are appalling. Most of that was social rather than legal, though some of the banking & real estate restrictions were law. I don’t think we’re quite as far ahead of, say, Syria or Turkey as we like to tell ourselves.
Women have been oppressed for all 6000 years of history: those prejudices run deep.
I do not think that the West ever required women to wear a burqa. Women have been driving cars in the USA since 1900. The right to vote was 1920. Attend college since 1831. I could go on.
True, women might not have Credit cards in the USA until the early 1970s, but credit cards were not all that common then, “In 1970, only 6 percent of families had a bank-type card with an outstanding balance after their most recent payment .” So yeah, for a while women could be routinely rejected for a credit card, but very few families had one anyway.
I do not believe there were any laws prohibiting women to have bank accounts,. etc?
Were there laws prohibiting women from having bank accounts, etc? Or do you mean that banks were not required to let women have a bank account? Which is entirely different.
I think it is important to note the woman is 17% more likely to die than a male wearing a seatbelt.
You make it sound like the seat belt is more likely to kill a woman than no seatbelt.
After the bullets, in my post, I have the line “The above is in comparison to men.” (see bolded below) and a link is provided for more detailed reading.
Even if that were true, so what? Should we refrain from criticism of misogyny and support for women’s rights in the worst parts of the world to avoid any hint of hypocrisy relative to “our” behavior in the past?
A more valid comment one might make about the Middle East generalization is to note that a number of African countries give the Middle East a run for their money as the worst places in the world for women.
https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/thematic-composite-indices/gender-inequality-index#/indicies/GII
I don’t recall the other objections either, but IIRC the “they wrinkle my dress” woman was next shown in a full-body cast.
I remember this. It showed people offering their dumb excuse, followed by a dramatic music blast, followed by that person in the same position, but all bandaged up.
One objection showed a guy reclining on a beach chair: “Around town they’re uncomfortable. And I like to relax when I drive”.
And the closing voiceover: “There are a million and one reasons for not wearing seatbelts. Some of them… are real… killers”.
If you think it’s bad that women get ignored in sales situations, try putting the woman in a wheelchair.
In an airport, recently, a female clerk insisted on talking to me about how much assistance she required, although she was standing right in front of my wife.
In restaurants (after we rearrange the tables and chairs to accommodate the wheelchair) waiters of both sexes seem to assume that physical handicap must also mean mental handicap.
What usually happens is that I play dumb and just keep referring to her.